


Distance

by SheMalfoy13



Series: What's in a Word? [6]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: And that excruciating pain that comes with rejecting what you want most, F/M, Or her own feelings really, The Author Regrets Everything, The Detective in love with the Chief, The ex who appears when least needed, The inability of the Chief to comprehend him, tw: eating disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 16:51:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15319923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheMalfoy13/pseuds/SheMalfoy13
Summary: Mako's feelings for Lin have finally reached her, and the Chief of Police does not handle feelings all that well, so she does what she does best, she pushes him away. What she wasn't expecting was her own pain while doing so.





	Distance

**Author's Note:**

> Sixth installment of the What's in a Word? universe.

The job of a Chief of Police was not an easy one. Lin knew that firsthand, even before she got the position. Her whole life had been shaped by the impossibility of a normal life that the Force brought. Thus, it never came as a surprise to her when she had to put her private life on hold because of a case, training the rookies, or any other Police-related affair. And right this moment she felt rather thankful of the escape the Force was giving her.

 

It had been one of the busiest months so far, and Lin was so buried in work she hadn’t had the chance to distract her mind or body with a certain Detective, and for that she was relieved. The last time she had accepted his attentions, well, it had left her rather preoccupied. She knew the boy was turned on by her, as she knew several other of her officers were, but with this one in particular, she had finally allowed herself to step outside her comfort zone, had enjoyed various pleasurable moments, and thought maybe it was something they could both benefit from. But the boy was balancing on the edge of a very dangerous matter, and Lin wasn’t sure she could be there to watch the fall. And the worst thing was, she had seen him climb there, and had done nothing but stare, and maybe even nudged him toward it, too.

 

There had been signs to notice, Mako had really all but spelled it out to her, the way he touched her, and his praise, and how his pulse spiked uncontrollably when she complimented him, the way he was willing to follow her around, wait for her, go out of his way to please her, in every sense of the word. Their last encounters had been wrong, she knew it. After the very hot shower, where he’d said that she was wonderful, in a way, with a tone that meant he was not just talking about how tight she felt around him or the fantastic head she gave, Lin knew she should’ve stopped. But she had fallen victim of her own weakness, and searched for him yet another night a week after, stress was her excuse, his toned body her indulgence. 

 

They had fucked on her office couch, a Wednesday late at night, and in the middle of it all their touches had turned a bit softer, and his lips were no longer cursing but complimenting, and she had allowed her eyes to close, and enjoy his fingers trailing gently over her skin, and the words to caress her soul, and her orgasm had felt perfect. And that had sent the wrong kind of shivers down Lin’s spine. She wasn’t made for feathery touches and romance, she didn’t have the time nor the ability to court, or be courted by someone, on an emotional level. It was not who she was; more importantly, it was not what she had been made to be.

 

She was absorbed in her thoughts while going through some paperwork late afternoon, when she felt a distinctive set of steps coming her way, and she opened the door to her office automatically, signaling for the Detective to speak, without bothering to look up from her scribbling. She could not afford the distraction.

 

“Chief, I brought you a note from Councilman Tenzin.” Mako’s voice sounded closer than she would’ve wanted, and when she answered nothing more than a quick  _ okay _ , he left the note on her desk, but remained in the office nonetheless.

 

“Anything else, Detective?” Lin asked from her position, her back growing stiffer with each moment the young Firebender remained in her vicinity. She felt him shuffle from one foot to the other; his pulse accelerated somewhat.

 

“I, I’ve brought you something to eat, Lin- Chief.” A pang of guilt hit her on the chest upon hearing such an endearing, but awful, sentence leave his lips. She left the pen on the desk, made a neat pile with the papers she had been working on and took a steadying breath before allowing herself to look at Mako. How had he become such a weakness for her, Lin was still trying to figure out. 

 

Oh, but he was so handsome. Lin was never a big fan of uniforms, maybe the fact that she grew up with them had something to do with it, there was just nothing exotic about them. She’d rather have her lovers stark naked. But the way the Detective jacket hugged at his chest and biceps, and how he carried the uniform, was so different from the boy who had joined the Force those years back. The stance in which he held himself was that of a Republic City Officer, so formal, mature, and strong. His hair was perfectly combed in a manner that begged her fingers to mess it up, and those eyes that burned when he looked at her. The boy was terribly nervous, she could tell, but had managed to keep his face schooled under her assessment of him, and he even had a tiny but sweet smile gracing his lips. Lin stopped herself from letting her mind supply the places those lips had been on her body, the way they had made her tremble with pleasure until she moaned his name. Instead she lifted an eyebrow and beckoned him to continue. The sooner he left the sooner she could go back to breathing normally.

 

“It’s nothing really, but I thought, well, you haven’t been out of the office all day, and I thought maybe you were hungry and so I brought…” He was rambling and if she wasn’t so tired from work or afraid of his feelings for her, afraid of her own feelings, Lin would’ve found it sweet, funny even. She cut him short with a hand gesture.

 

“Thank you. Just, leave it on the table and go. I’m sure there’s work to do, outside of my office too.” She could see his face falling, maybe even feel his heart through the floor, stopping for a second, upon her harshness, but Lin could not back out from this. Mako needed to understand she was not a good person for him to be with, much less  _ wonderful _ , as he had put it. 

 

Mako deposited the small takeout bag on the table at the corner of the office and left, closing the door behind him. A sigh escaped Lin’s lips and she felt her body deflate from the tension she had accumulated in those few minutes. She felt like shit for doing this to the young man, but this was better than the alternative of the boy actually falling in love with her, and waking up one day to realise the mistake he’d made. Of how he’d been sleeping around with a woman thirty years older than him, so emotionally crippled, she couldn’t even show affection, aside from a quick meaningless shag. She was someone with whom he had no future outside of a pleasurable time. And maybe even learn the Chief position to replace her one day. 

 

And then, he would leave her for a younger woman, one that could give him a family, one that liked cooking and having dinner together, that smiled more, someone whose face wasn’t disfigured. And Lin, she would be right where she always found herself, alone in her apartment, alone in her office; her whole life alone.

 

She didn’t like the way her thoughts were straying and so she opened Tenzin’s note in hopes of getting distracted, only to find herself hurting once more. 

 

In a month’s time it would, once again, be Tenzin’s wedding anniversary. He was planning a big event to celebrate it, and he was, once again, requesting the Force to be present due to several politicians, and public figures, attending to the celebration. Great. Just what she needed, to take officers from their post to work at a stupid party. Lin ran a hand over her face; she really was tired, her eyelids heavy and a headache forming in her temple. It was going to be a long month. 

 

Lin stretched on her chair and let her gaze wander over to the table where the food was. It smelled nice, something Water Tribe she guessed, and her mouth moistened at the prospect of food, her brain reminding her that the last time she’d had real food was that Wednesday with Mako. Maybe she could take a couple of minutes off, to try and enjoy a meal, to actually eat. 

 

She was about to stand when the phone rang, and she answered reluctantly. There went another chance to relax a little; there was an attempted murder she needed to check in on. Lin threw her trench coat over her armor and left the office, the little takeout bag forgotten.

 

Over the course of the next few days, Lin found herself aching more and more, her constant rejections of Mako and the phone calls from Tenzin to ask another stupid thing or the other about the guard at the party, were opening little cracks in her armor, and she was losing her balance. She’d spent years upon years building a wall, shielding herself, hiding from the prospect of a new heartbreak, and this Detective, this  _ boy _ , had the nerve of snaking his way under her skin, and Lin could not remove him from her thoughts. Much like how she’d found herself reminiscing about her past with Tenzin, and it made her nauseous. That man was out of her life, had been out of her life for years, he had no right to show up in her sleepless nights like that  _ They _ had no right to make her feel like this; to make her feel at all.

 

It was one of those mornings, returning from another night of warehouse duty, that she bumped into the Detective. Lin was on her way to take a shower, and Mako seemed to be returning from one, his hair was still moist on the tips and he smelled of soap, and that minty scent that was characteristically him, and she could not help but to slow down her pace, as she went by him. He reached his hand out, barely grazed at her wrist, and Lin felt a jolt of electricity run through her body, and trembled at how she missed him.

 

“Chief.” Mako called back to her, and she stopped on her tracks and turned painfully slow, he had a small smile tugging at his lips, and she so desperately wanted to-

 

“Detective, anything you need?” It was best if she played dumb, Lin repeated in her mind, it was necessary that she stopped this nonsense, lest someone get hurt. Her, most likely.

 

“Yes, I- uh” He looked up and down the hallway, and she found herself pushing through the floor to check if there was someone around, before shaking her head free of stupid ideas, and crossing her arms over her chest. His smile faltered, and he put his hands into his pockets, and she felt another crack appear in her resolve. “No. I’m sorry. Have a good day.”

 

Lin cried in the shower, although she wasn’t entirely sure why. She wanted this, right?

 

She had managed to go a full week without crossing paths with the Firebender, and she felt like maybe, she could do this, maybe she could cut him from her life, so long as she were extremely aware of his working schedule, and avoided leaving her office as much as her duty allowed her, during his shifts. But she would be lying if she said it had been an easy week. She was working twice as much, taking cases from other officers to occupy the long nights without sleep, claiming she had the time and letting them go home sooner. Her diet consisted on coffee and a pastry while in the office, sometimes not even that, if the cops were feeling particularly hungry that day. And when she was at home she bought noodles from a street vendor, only to play with them on her plate and ultimately eat half of it. Maybe.

 

Lin sighed and rubbed at her tired eyes. She had spent yet another night without sleep at the station. The papers in front of her, the ones containing officer assignments for Tenzin’s stupid celebration, were blurry. She stood and made her way to the kitchenette to grab some coffee, but the machine was empty, and so she started it again, retreating to her office to close her eyes on the couch, for just a second. Sleep was slowly claiming her body, her back relaxing vertebrae by vertebrae on the leathery seat, her mind drifting to a series of images she didn’t care much to analyse. Warm hands and endearing smiles, and her name being whispered so lovingly.

 

And then she felt him, and he was making his way to her office, and her eyes opened with a start, and why in the Spirits’ name was he here? It was not his shift. There was a knock on the office’s door, and Lin knew it was pointless to try and pretend she wasn’t in, his steps were careful and his weight being constantly balanced from one foot to the other, as if he was balancing something on his hands, he was likely bringing coffee, someone had probably told him she was waiting for it. Lin sighed and made her way behind her desk, opening the door with a flick of her wrist, and grabbing the first paper that she could get her hands on to distract herself, to wake up.

 

“Good morning, Chief, I brought your coffee.” His voice was firm, resolute, and he was holding himself tall, and she wanted to give in, just one last time. Lin looked up at him, and he was ever the perfect Detective, his uniform impeccable, hair combed, lips with that lovely smile of his.

 

“Thank you, Detective.” She tried to stifle a yawn, but it was fruitless, and with it, came the worried question of Mako. He placed the mug on her desk.

 

“Long night, Chief?” 

 

Could she blame him? Lin asked herself. She had encouraged this, she actually enjoyed it, his attentions, his concern, his warm words and touches. She squared her jaw and tried to answer as nicely as she could without falling into his eyes.

 

“Yes, work never ceases to reach my desk, it’s as if all of the roads lead here.” Lin reached for the mug and took a long sip, allowing the hot liquid to sit on her tongue for a while before swallowing, discouraging unnecessary words from coming out. Like, what was he still doing in her office, why couldn’t he just stop haunting her? If she fucked him one more time, would he leave her be, or would he claim to love her? Because she really did want the answer to all of that, but she wasn’t going to ask. So Lin asked the only thing she could. “I thought you had a night shift, did you change it with someone?”

 

And she shouldn’t have asked, because his pulse spiked with something warm, and positive, like hope, and his eyes seemed to confirm that she had expressed interest in him, yet again.

 

“Yes, Bolin, he wanted to go out tonight, so I asked Chun to change it. I was thinking maybe, afterwards, if-”

 

“Good. You should go out with your brother.” And other people your own age, she refrained from adding. Lin wasn’t sure how Mako was going to finish his sentence, but she had an idea, and it was best if she didn’t confirm it. So she put up the walls once again, dismissing the stabbing feeling she felt in her chest. Another crack. “Can I help you with anything else, Detective?” He seemed to doubt on whether or not to speak, and to Lin’s chagrin, he decided to do it.

 

“Is there something wrong, Lin? Have  _ I _ done something wrong, something to upset you?” Mako’s voice, the actual hurt in his voice, the way her name sounded coming from his lips, it was too much for her to handle in so little sleep, and so much stress, and she snapped.

 

“What makes you believe we are on a first name basis, Detective? If I’m not mistaken, we are not in a bar right now, but at Headquarters.” She saw him flinch at her words, and his pulse was suddenly very loud through the floor, fearful, and bile rose in her throat, and she needed him out of her office right now. “So you  _ will _ call me Chief, is that understood?”

 

“Yes, Chief.” 

 

Lin’s hands were shaking and his were fisted at his sides, and she saw him swallow with difficulty, and she desperately wanted to apologise, to explain her irrationality. To tell him she was actually scared that she could feel something for him, that maybe she wasn’t as broken as she thought herself to be, and that he was a sweet boy that didn’t deserve this shit. Instead, she kicked him out.

 

“That’s enough of you wasting my time, Detective. Now leave the office and find something useful to do.”

 

There was one second, that stretched like hours, in which Lin’s body doubled with pain, and her eyes prickled, and she bit her lips not to call him back. Because the moment the door closed with a soft click, the air was stiff, and Mako’s pulse coming to her all the way from the end of the hall and down the stairs, made it all too silent in her office, deafeningly silent. Like her apartment. Like her. And then, in one swift movement, she was on the floor in her private bathroom, trying to empty her stomach from food that was not there, vomiting the coffee, and the bile, and the unspoken words, until her throat hurt, and she felt the tang of blood on her lips.

 

She left the office; her Deputy was in charge for the rest of the week.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! To anyone and everyone who might be reading, following the series or just stumbled upon this, and decided to see what was happening; we are not dead, we've just had that thing that gets in the way of stuff- life, I believe it's called, it's the worst. So, if anyone was waiting, and is still around, thank you for the patience! We hope to be able to upload sooner, but in the meantime, if any of you want to check out our RP blogs on Tumblr, you can find a whole other universe there. 
> 
> You can find Lin, and Mako in: https://force-formed.tumblr.com/ - https://idonthaveabackstory.tumblr.com/


End file.
